Illinois Nursing Home Advocates Should Stand Against Dangerous Federal Budget

Each year Congress spends much of its time debating the ins and outs of the upcoming federal budget. The outcomes of those debates have tremendous consequences for all those concerned about Illinois nursing home care. For this reason, a quality Chicago nursing home lawyer will always follow the budget process and advocate on behalf of the most logical resolution that protects the rights and interests of our vulnerable senior citizens.

Unfortunately, a proposal working its way through Congress now offers a dangerous and possible debilitating rejection of the obligation to provide for the proper treatment of our elderly community members. The Consumer Voices reports that this week the U.S. House of Representatives passed the FY 2012 Budget Resolution. The measure promulgates a string of dangerous ideas: reducing and block-granting Medicaid funding, making Medicare a private voucher program, and ultimately destroying decades of bipartisan healthcare reform and guidance.

For example, the bill would cut away at quality standards of local nursing homes. In other words, these facilities would be told that they no longer have to ensure residents have a certain quality of life. With the lowered standards, enforcement and inspections would also be cut. In that way the worst nursing homes would have no fear of surprise inspections exposing their negligent nursing home care. Transparency requirements are also cut in the budget, so that facilities are no longer required to provide information that helps families decide upon the best home for their loved one.

Overall then the bill would lower standards, eliminate enforcement of those lowered standards, and hide information from families about the quality of potential homes. Passage of this unbelievably extreme measure would unequivocally harm the quality of Illinois nursing home care.
Our Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti have been involved with far too many cases of gross negligence and abuse at poor Illinois facilities. We understand the extreme importance of doing everything possible to raise the standard of care at these nursing homes. It is unacceptable for the needs of our seniors to be prioritized so low by federal policymakers.

Please contact your United States Senators to ensure that they understand the devastation that will result from passage of this measure. Lives may hang in the balance.

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